In the medical, veterinary, and horticultural areas, flexible culture vessels are the industry standard for storing living tissues. Flexible culture vessels (FCVs) are described (as “integuments”) in U.S. Pat. No. 5,171,683 to Kertz titled INTEGUMENT AND METHOD FOR MICROPROPAGATION AND TISSUE CULTURING, which is herein incorporated by reference.
FCVs generally comprise gas permeable, heat sealable enclosures for in vitro micropropagation and maintenance of plants and the culture or maintenance of bacteria and fungi, eukarotic cell/tissues, and similar biological materials. FCVs are an efficient and cost-effective means of storing living tissues and provide a potentially useful alternative to jars, test tubes and plastic boxes. FCVs also resist contamination more effectively than traditional culture vessels (i.e. glass or hard plastic containers)—thus increasing the efficiency of the propagation/maintenance process.
However, FCVs are awkward to work with due to their lack of a defined shape. Unlike test tubes, jars, and other rigid storage vessels, FCVs cannot be readily stored in an upright position—which makes FCVs difficult to handle and impairs the ability of laboratory technicians to record data and inventory tissues stored or growing in the FCVs. Further, the conventional flat FCV configuration impairs the ability of light to uniformly penetrate into the FCVs and (in the case of plant tissues) inhibits the potential growth of materials cultured within the FCVs.
The need exists for a means of transforming FCVs so that the advantages of the gas-permeable, heat-sealable bags are retained while enabling the FCVs to be handled and monitored more effectively. The semi-rigid culture vessel described herein comprises a simple and inexpensive apparatus for transforming FCVs to enable an operator to store FCVs in an upright position while retaining the advantages of a flexible storage vessel.